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An unprecedented flurry of road work and private construction prior to next year’s Pan Am Games — and continuing afterward — has GTA traffic moving painfully slowly.

Having a harder time than usual making your way around town? You're not alone, as construction and road work make the daily grind to work and school even more slow and difficult across the city. (COLIN MCCONNELL / TORONTO STAR)

City officials say they are monitoring the west end impacts of simultaneous work on the Gardiner Expressway and Lake Shore Blvd., but their account differs from that of frustrated commuters.
(Colin McConnell / Toronto Star)

GO Transit bus riders have been warned about 30-minute delays in their rides due to construction and road work. (COLIN MCCONNELL / TORONTO STAR)

Last year, George Politis expanded his Leslieville pub, The Duke, turning the former car dealership next door into a sunny patio. But on a glorious June afternoon, only a couple of men are chatting at one of the tables.

Politis admits business is down, but he doesn’t complain. His neighbours, however, are sympathetic. The Duke is at Ground Zero of TTC track work and a city water main project at Queen and Leslie Sts.

“I can’t imagine anyone would want to sit out there and enjoy a drink next to the jackhammers,” says Max Ryan, who works at fine-food emporium Sandy Aleksander on Jones Ave., where business is also down.

“The whole city’s under construction, but this is the worst part,” he says.

Maybe. But it has competition.

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The road construction season of 2014 is the worst in recent memory, say drivers. Lane closures are plugging the Gardiner Expressway and Lake Shore Blvd. West, even on weekends. The TTC and city have Queen St. East blocked and Queens Quay is also an obstacle course of construction.

Even transit doesn’t offer much relief. GO Transit now warns of 30- and 40-minute delays on some of its buses.

Meantime, one city official says the kind of road work Toronto is experiencing this year is a sign of things to come. It will continue up to the Pan Am Games next summer and pick up again as soon as the athletes leave town, says Steve Buckley, Toronto’s general manager of transportation services.

“Toronto is upping its infrastructure investment all around. When you do that and you have a lot of private development going on, you have a lot of construction. The fact that we’re doing this will put us ahead of other cities in 10 or 20 years,” he said.

On Queen St., the Leslie St. intersection will be closed until June 21. But then on the 27th, the intersection of Broadview and Queen closes for track work for a month.

It takes a toll on business, say merchants such as Wilson Li. Some days, it’s so slow he doesn’t even open his fashion boutique near Curzon Rd.

But it’s not quiet enough for those living on the side streets that have become thoroughfares for motorists trying to get around the construction, says Richard Calhoun, who lives on Alton St. He complains there’s traffic “night and day.” Motorists don’t read the signs telling them that the streets are for local traffic only.

“The other night, it was big trucks rumbling up there,” he said.

Councillor Paula Fletcher, who has been monitoring the impact of the construction, says she is disappointed that the city’s executive committee recently deferred what she calls her “all pain, no gain” motion to compensate businesses affected by the construction on Queen near Leslie.

The slogan refers to what Fletcher says are minimal benefits the neighbourhood will see for all its trouble. She points to new pavers on the sidewalk corners. She’d pushed for locating the tracks elsewhere in the first place, but lost that argument.

Buckley has been taking a lot of heat for the lane closures on the Gardiner and concurrent work on Lake Shore Blvd. West. But he says there’s no choice: The Gardiner work has to be done in time for the Pan Am Games next summer and the city has to work around events like the Indy and the Caribbean carnival on Lake Shore.

Although council has increased its spending on roads, Buckley says he’s ready to ask for more money to make projects go faster, by having construction crews working overtime and overnight.

Meantime, he advises commuters to consider transit rather than driving.

“If you’re taking a bus in the same traffic you might have less stress out of the event,” he said.

But don’t expect the bus to be faster. The city is in contact with GO Transit and the TTC, monitoring bus delays.

“When the Gardiner first closed (lanes) we had noticed the delays weren’t as significant as they are now. But now, as we run into event season, the delays are much longer, especially on the weekends,” said GO spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins.

GO is warning riders of delays of 30 minutes on routes along the Gardiner and Lake Shore and up to 40 minutes between Sheppard and Finch on Yonge St., where utility work is slowing buses.

“We would much rather people go on trains than sit on buses for two hours if at all possible,” said Aikins.

The Gardiner work “is short-term pain for long-term gain,” said Faye Lyons, of CAA South Central Ontario. “It is an asset we have to protect and invest in for the sake of being mobile and the movement of goods and services.”

But it points to the need for a regional solution for congestion, she said. The Gardiner lane closures send more traffic to other routes such as Highways 427 and 401, Lyons said.

Lisa Toste, regional sales manager for Intelligent Office, isn’t prepared to take transit even though she says the Gardiner work has added between 20 and 25 minutes each way to her commute from Etobicoke. Don’t get her started on the lineup to get on the Gardiner ramp at York St. in the evening.

But, she says, “I’m pretty patient. I know driving from the west end to downtown is never going to be quick. I’d rather that than take the subway. I just like not being squished up with strangers,” she said.

Rishi Luka says it would take him two and a half hours by transit between his Danforth-area home and his office in Milton. Although he leaves home about 6:30 a.m. to bypass the worst of the traffic and he has flexible hours, his commute is up from about 45 minutes to an hour.

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